In order to achieve a silver halide photosensitive material which is highly sensitive and can be quickly processed, it is important to improve the developing rate of the material.
For high sensitivity photosensitive materials, silver iodide is generally used in view of sensitivity and image quality. However, silver iodobromide emulsions take longer to develop than silver chloride or silver bromide emulsions. Thus, improvement in this area is greatly desired.
Improvements dealing with the above problems have been described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,423,549, 2,531,832, 2,533,990 wherein a non-ionic surfactant containing polyoxyethylene is added to the emulsion. However, these methods do not provide sufficiently quick processing times.
JP-A-61-69061 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application ")discloses an improved developing process achieved through the addition of polyacrylamides or dextrans. When these polymers are added, however, the film quality deteriorates a great deal in the wet state, e.g., in the wet state, the scratch resistance declines. This in turn causes developing problems.
JP-A-53-44025, JP-A-52-114328, JP-A-56-156826, JP-B-48-43136 (the term "JP-B" as used herein means an "examined Japanese patent publication") disclose a process which speeds up developing by carrying out developing in the presence of a cationic compound.
The present invention surprisingly and unexpectedly discovered that if these two methods were combined, the problem of deterioration of film quality caused by the addition of polymers would be resolved.